April 2019 SE Results Thread

[Nathan55]

Who shall we sacrifice in this epic battle?

My ASCE 7-10 code. NCEES will likely change to the ASCE 7-16 code soon, which will likely be far simpler and less ambiguous to use during the test. (insert evil villain laugh)

 

[ChaosMuppetPE]

My ASCE 7-10 code. NCEES will likely change to the ASCE 7-16 code soon, which will likely be far simpler and less ambiguous to use during the test. (insert evil villain laugh)

Just wait until they release the ASCE 7-20 edition. I heard they just tore the pages from the ASCE 7-16, shuffled the pages like a deck of cards, then reassembled it.

 

[SouthernEngineer]

Just wait until they release the ASCE 7-20 edition. I heard they just tore the pages from the ASCE 7-16, shuffled the pages like a deck of cards, then reassembled it.

So they pulled an ACI? Have to get money somehow

 

[Dean Agnostic]

Just wait until they release the ASCE 7-20 edition. I heard they just tore the pages from the ASCE 7-16, shuffled the pages like a deck of cards, then reassembled it.

Oh Lawd! Why do you have to be so honest!

 

[Dean Agnostic]

The NCEES practice exam is one of the most eloquent "inception"-level sleights of hand I've seen.

 Very True!

 

[Dean Agnostic]

These "Subject Matter Experts" grading the exam are mostly drunk clowns with big shoes (and no children's birthday party bookings) and people from bum fights with a few reasonably competent people scattered about IMO. Hell, from some of the things I've seen on my previous exams, I wouldn't be surprised if NCEES hired floor sweepers from Labor Ready for grammar checks.

ROFLMFAO! It's very useful for me to read your viewpoints, the other side of the equation. I never thought of it that way. 

 

[Dean Agnostic]

I would bet the grading is so inconsistent as to be laughable. I say this because I know for a FACT engineers that do NOT understand seismic detailing get invites to attend the grading shop. It has happened in my office.

Oh Lawd! This would be fatal for the Organization, especially if you have sufficient evidence to establish inconsistencies. 

 

[ChaosMuppetPE]

Oh Lawd! This would be fatal for the Organization, especially if you have sufficient evidence to establish inconsistencies. 

Man. Fun stuff. I obviously don't think it would be fatal to the organization. A little transparency would go a long way. I get invites to write sample questions for study guides, is it too much to ask that NCEES do the same? The prized bank of test questions seems a little ridiculous from our perspective. In addition, older engineers were allowed to review their exams. Why did this change? Sounds to me like NCEES could use a little competition. Any insights would be greatly appreciated, as I am a firm believer that one of my afternoon questions on the previous exam was misgraded. As far as grammar and content checks, yes, I've seen those too, unfortunately. I SPECIFICALLY recall an afternoon question in wood that required a moment check for roughly 1600 k-ft moment for a roof rafter a couple cycles ago. In my humble opinion, someone could've just written, "No. This obviously doesn't work by inspection. A moment this large is ridiculous for wood framing!" and this individual would've been absolutely correct by all metrics. That wouldn't be accepted by NCEES though, despite it being an absolutely correct and viable answer.

Like I've said earlier, I like to talk, I like to get riled up, and I will continue to stoke the smoldering coals. That doesn't mean we can't be friends though, @Dean Agnostic. I'm on my medication today, so I feel amenable. If you truly have anything to do with NCEES, maybe you could write Georgia and tell them to use the SE exam as God intended (the very same God that we don't know and really can't know exists. Unfalsifiability is odd like that). It seems a bit more than ridiculous as a practicing PE that roughly 99% of my time is spent designing delegated items and low rise structures in SDC's at C and below, but I have to have the very extra special super seismic SE Lateral knowledge for licensure when the state doesn't even recognize SE's separately. I'll never use most of this again, but as an organization, NCEES has pushed this test down the throats of the next generation. Thanks, NCEES. We appreciate that.

I can appreciate the sarcasm, as I'm very sarcastic myself.

 

[Nathan55]

 Very True!

Your mind is the scene of the crime. Also, in other news, the earth is flat and politicians are honest.

 

[Nathan55]

Man. Fun stuff. I obviously don't think it would be fatal to the organization. A little transparency would go a long way. I get invites to write sample questions for study guides, is it too much to ask that NCEES do the same? The prized bank of test questions seems a little ridiculous from our perspective. In addition, older engineers were allowed to review their exams. Why did this change? Sounds to me like NCEES could use a little competition. Any insights would be greatly appreciated, as I am a firm believer that one of my afternoon questions on the previous exam was misgraded. As far as grammar and content checks, yes, I've seen those too, unfortunately. I SPECIFICALLY recall an afternoon question in wood that required a moment check for roughly 1600 k-ft moment for a roof rafter a couple cycles ago. In my humble opinion, someone could've just written, "No. This obviously doesn't work by inspection. A moment this large is ridiculous for wood framing!" and this individual would've been absolutely correct by all metrics. That wouldn't be accepted by NCEES though, despite it being an absolutely correct and viable answer.

Like I've said earlier, I like to talk, I like to get riled up, and I will continue to stoke the smoldering coals. That doesn't mean we can't be friends though, @Dean Agnostic. I'm on my medication today, so I feel amenable. If you truly have anything to do with NCEES, maybe you could write Georgia and tell them to use the SE exam as God intended (the very same God that we don't know and really can't know exists. Unfalsifiability is odd like that). It seems a bit more than ridiculous as a practicing PE that roughly 99% of my time is spent designing delegated items and low rise structures in SDC's at C and below, but I have to have the very extra special super seismic SE Lateral knowledge for licensure when the state doesn't even recognize SE's separately. I'll never use most of this again, but as an organization, NCEES has pushed this test down the throats of the next generation. Thanks, NCEES. We appreciate that.

I can appreciate the sarcasm, as I'm very sarcastic myself.

I am pretty sure I've had afternoon questions graded incorrectly too. I'd of course love to prove this, but...a peek into NCEES' modus operandi would likely reveal inconsistencies. It's a classic Boeing 737 MAX 8 situation. "Rather than have us, the government, regulate you...how about if you just do it yourselves and we'll pinky swear that you're being super honest instead of checking your work and confirming it for ourselves. Everybody wins!"

 

[Nathan55]

yeah my general response is, I don't think I bombed it, but I ran out of time. So I'm not expecting to pass, but there's about a 3% chance I might have squeaked by.

There is an irony to running out of time on the test. In certain situations, not having enough time can hide deficiencies in knowledge if you are general enough in your "this is how I'd do it" dialogue. Not getting into the weeds can mean you're not getting points taken off for doing things incorrectly.

 

[tj_PE]

There is an irony to running out of time on the test. In certain situations, not having enough time can hide deficiencies in knowledge if you are general enough in your "this is how I'd do it" dialogue. Not getting into the weeds can mean you're not getting points taken off for doing things incorrectly.

oh totally. i was less prepared than I had planned to be. But it wasn't like I didn't know how to do/where to find stuff, it was just being efficient. About an hour into the morning, i realized I should just do problems of the same type at the same time so i'm not swapping codes around. And I forgot my clock so I didn't have constant time awareness. I don't think I passed the morning. But maybe I displayed enough knowledge in the afternoon problems. That's all. People who don't take the exam don't understand it though, and everyone asks how it went. So that's my "short" answer. lol.

 

[Nathan55]

oh totally. i was less prepared than I had planned to be. But it wasn't like I didn't know how to do/where to find stuff, it was just being efficient. About an hour into the morning, i realized I should just do problems of the same type at the same time so i'm not swapping codes around. And I forgot my clock so I didn't have constant time awareness. I don't think I passed the morning. But maybe I displayed enough knowledge in the afternoon problems. That's all. People who don't take the exam don't understand it though, and everyone asks how it went. So that's my "short" answer. lol.

Ah I see. Running out of time on the morning is a bit more tricky. You may get fortunate with some guesses, but...it all depends. I'm generally more able to determine how well I do on the morning based on the timing. When I am able to finish 35ish problems, I can plan on 27-29 correct out of 40. I have forgotten my clock before as well, which is a HUGE pain. The oddity is that I convinced myself I'd fail and ended up being very calm and not being rushed for time. Not being able to check the time somehow made me less nervous. 

 

[onemanwolfpack]

About an hour into the morning, i realized I should just do problems of the same type at the same time so i'm not swapping codes around.

I did this for both tests, and found it to be very beneficial. Just jotted down which group of questions were going to be in the AISC, ACI, etc., and then went back and answered them all of each at once. This also gave me a chance to read through all 40 questions and make a mental note of which questions I knew I could solve quickly, which I could solve in under 6 min, and which I had no idea/would take a long time to work out. Any question I came across that I could solve in 1-2 min without cracking a code, I would just do on the spot. I cant remember entirely, but I feel like I was getting through ~15-18 questions in the first hour doing it this way. 

This of course creates an extra bit of bookkeeping you may or may not want to be doing during a rushed exam. And I was super nervous that I was going to accidentally bubble in answers for the wrong questions since I was jumping around so much, so that's definitely something you'd have to pay attention to. I believe the EET guys preach this method, and I'm all for it, it just takes a bit of practice to see what exactly works best for you.

 

[tj_PE]

yeah. i also regret not marking lightly potential answers in my first round so if i didn't get a chance to come back to them, i could blindly fill it in later and at least count on having an educated guess.

 

[ChaosMuppetPE]

Where my friends at?

 

[Nathan55]

Where my friends at?

Just found out that a special shear wall I'm designing may need boundary elements. I'm pretty psyched about that. I could make the wall longer or thicker, just to avoid the requirement. But this exam has given me perverse incentives to show that I can do random things that 95% of structural engineers at my firm have no interest in doing. I check shear friction between the wall/foundation interface just cuz I can.

 

[Duke]

(the very same God that we don't know and really can't know exists. Unfalsifiability is odd like that)

More probable that not is enough for me.

A little transparency would go a long way.

I agree, but if they become more transparent then they run the risk of more engineers learning and becoming more proficient and then proving competence... and they can't have that.

 

[ChaosMuppetPE]

@tj_PE, Why are you always giving me chocolate ice cream with googly eyes?

 

[cal91]

I did this for both tests, and found it to be very beneficial. Just jotted down which group of questions were going to be in the AISC, ACI, etc., and then went back and answered them all of each at once. This also gave me a chance to read through all 40 questions and make a mental note of which questions I knew I could solve quickly, which I could solve in under 6 min, and which I had no idea/would take a long time to work out. Any question I came across that I could solve in 1-2 min without cracking a code, I would just do on the spot. I cant remember entirely, but I feel like I was getting through ~15-18 questions in the first hour doing it this way. 

This of course creates an extra bit of bookkeeping you may or may not want to be doing during a rushed exam. And I was super nervous that I was going to accidentally bubble in answers for the wrong questions since I was jumping around so much, so that's definitely something you'd have to pay attention to. I believe the EET guys preach this method, and I'm all for it, it just takes a bit of practice to see what exactly works best for you.

I thought about this method but did a simplified version for the very reasons you said - didn't want the extra bookkeeping, and didn't want to spend too much time looking through every problem before solving them.

My method was I just did all 32 non bridge problems in a row, skipping the roughly 2 to 4 questions where I didn't know where/how to get the answer and would have to do some code digging.  This meant I had to use AISC one question, then ACI , then NDS, then ASCE7, then TMS, etc rinse and repeat. But I didn't mind, I only had those 5 books plus AISI and IBC on my desk so it was pretty fast to grab another reference.  Those 32 problems took about 2 hours.

Then I did the 8 bridge questions in a row, again skipping maybe 1 or 2 if it looked like I'd spend a lot of time on it. This would take about 45 minutes.

 After that I'd have about 5 questions to go back and get, and about half of those I'd realize the trick.  Looking at it a tricky question for the second time, after an hour or two of delving in the code and solving the "easier" questions really does something for your mind. For me, if I stubbornly sit on the question until I solve it, I'll eventually get it but after a lot of time searching the cod.  The other half of those last questions I'd have to go digging in the code to find. This would take about 30 minutes. 

Then after that I'd have about 45 minutes to just go through and double check that I answered every question and marked the correct bubble.  I usually find one or two that I forgot to bubble or bubbled the wrong one. It is also good to glance over every question a second time through because you might think of something that you didn't before. I'll usually find a couple questions glancing through a second time where I'll realize there was a trick, or an exception, or a missed piece of given information or something. 

But I'd tell anyone to take the exam the same way they've been taking their practice exams... don't try something new. It should feel like clockwork. So this takes some planning ahead, in that you should take your practice exams the way that you plan on taking the real exam.